Five Guys, a fast food restaurant selling hamburgers, hot dogs and french fries, opened a new franchise on Temple University’s Main Campus below the Vantage apartment complex on 12th Street near Cecil B. Moore Avenue.
The restaurant officially opened its doors on Feb. 17. Its hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day of the week, said Teri Yago-Ryan, the vice president of communications at the Goldenberg Group, a regional development company which built and manages Vantage.
The franchise originally planned to open in the “latter part of 2020,” but the construction shutdown in March 2020 delayed the Five Guys’ opening, Yago-Ryan said.
The Goldenberg Group was pursuing Five Guys to be tenants as soon as construction began on the Vantage apartments, Yago-Ryan said. The Goldenberg Group began Vantage construction in Fall 2017 and finished it in Fall 2019, The Temple News reported.
“It would be a great fit and complement to our existing roster of great tenants including Chipotle, Potbelly [Sandwich Shop], Blaze Pizza and Old Nelson [Food Company],” Yago-Ryan said. “With a nice mix of retail offerings and CVS [Pharmacy] also on site, residents rarely need to go outside of the View, Vantage community for essentials and food favorites.”
There are currently between 30 and 40 workers employed at the restaurant, with around 15 employees working the floor at a given time, said Coangerys Peralta, a manager at the restaurant.
“We do have a couple Temple kids who work here, but we’re hiring all over,” Peralta said.
Being on a college campus allows the business to have a large pool of potential employees, while also seeing familiar faces in and out of the shop consistently, Peralta added.
Brian Durkin, a junior computer science major, plans to eat at the restaurant regularly because Five Guys accepts Diamond Dollars.
“It’s really nice to have this new restaurant on Temple’s campus,” Durkin said. “We don’t really have a good burger place besides Burger Tank, so it’s nice to have some options now.”
Dejuana Griffin, a manager at Five Guys, said this location allows the 984 students living in Vantage to be close to the restaurant.
Both Griffin and Peralta agreed that opening the new restaurant during the COVID-19 pandemic has not added any additional difficulties to the opening and hiring processes.
“The only challenge we’ve had is keeping up constantly with new employees in the store, a new rush and training new people,” Peralta said. “We’ve managed to work it out.”
New restaurants on campus keeps Main Campus more modern, said Sophie Bronstein, a junior corporate finance major.
“Once the pandemic ends, this place will be the go-to late-night snack for us,” she said.
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By Jared Rutz
Campus News
Mar 27, 2021